The report found that Illinois and Pennsylvania have more wealthy households leaving than arriving, but California leads the nation for the net number of wealthy households leaving.

States gaining the most? Florida and Texas.

So what do east coast, midwest and west coast states like Pennsylvania, Illinois and California have in common?

All three are high-tax states, said Joseph Henchman, a vice president at the Tax Foundation. On the other hand, Florida and Texas are much lower tax states.

“Illinois is particularly vulnerable to more out-migration because its neighbors — Wisconsin and Indiana — are busy lowering their taxes,” Henchman added.

On the other hand, the Illinois Legislature jacked up our income taxes by 67 percent back in 2011.

This has hurt folks from all economic groups.

And for folks who make their living making business decisions, it has created one more incentive to leave Illinois.

While it’s easy to shrug off the rich guy across town leaving, there is good reason for all of us to be concerned.

Have you ever worked for a business person poorer than yourself? Me neither.

Even those working in the public sector need to remember where taxes come from to pay for their jobs.

And yet, Illinois is consistently pursuing policies that are pushing these job creators to more hospitable business climates.

And where those jobs go, poor and middle-class Illinoisans are sure to follow as well.

This migration translates into real money, according to Travis Brown, author of the book “How Money Walks,” a project that measures where people are moving based on tax returns.

“Illinois as a state lost $29.27 billion over the 18 years from 1992 – 2010,” Brown said.

During that period, only California and New York lost more income than Illinois, his study found.

“That’s a loss of $185,000 per hour. We forecast that between 2010 and 2014 Illinois lost somewhere between $5.4 and $7 billion in adjusted gross income due to migration,” Brown said.

Illinois is in that minority of states that continue to levy an estate tax.

Estate planners are increasingly advising retired, successful Illinoisans to consider moving to a state without an estate tax so that assets can be passed more easily from one generation to the next.

That hurts all of us.

When successful retirees leave, they are no longer spending money in the Land of Lincoln, paying taxes here or donating to Illinois charities.

And that equates to fewer jobs for the rest of us.

And ultimately that is why all of us should be concerned.

Scott Reeder is a veteran statehouse reporter and the journalist in residence at the Illinois Policy Institute. He can be reached at sreeder@illinoispolicy.org. Readers can subscribe to his free political newsletter by going to ILNEWS.ORG or follow his work on Twitter @scottreeder.